Why military leaders want you all to die

This is an old post from my now-defunct Myspace blog. I'm going to post some of the older postings in reverse chronological order to put a little meat on the bones of this puppy.

Originally posted on Monday, March 12, 2007.


So the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, was quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying he thought homosexuality was immoral and that he supported the military's ban on openly gay soldiers. No big surprise there. Pace also had nothing to say about the more than 50 homosexuals who have been discharged from our military who were Arabic language specialists. This, I suppose, isn't surprising either. What could he really say? Because if he was forced to address it, a good journalist could easily corner him with something like, "So you think the safety of all Americans is less important than what a soldier does in the privacy of his or her bedroom?" And, sadly, that's what it boils down to.

After 9/11 the U.S. government realized it was short on Arabic language specialists. Indeed, I saw some government official go on TV and ask anyone trained in Arabic to step forward and help the country in its time of need. I also happened to be reading the New York Times a few days after 9/11, and buried in small paragraph in the middle of the paper was a news snippet about three U.S. soldiers who were Arabic language specialists who had just been dismissed for being gay. Why there wasn't more outrage over this, I'll never know. But it's disgusting that there are religious nutbags in Washington (including W himself), who talk endlessly of wanting to protect "Amurica," while they kick out men and women with a crucial language skill--a skill that's perhaps one of the best weapons we have in the "War on Terrur." Quite frankly, I don't care if an Arabic-trained soldier is a child molester... let him serve! Keep him locked in a room away from children with only a box of recordings to translate, but let the man do his job!

There are lots of dumb things about America that I look at and say, "One day future generations will look back and laugh at us for this." (Artificial Christmas trees being one such thing, but that's a wholly different topic.) But kicking out soldiers because they happen to be gay when they possess an absolutely vital skill isn't something we'll laugh about; we'll look back one day and say, "How dangerously retarded"... if we don't get blown up by some other religious nutbags first.